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Thursday, July 19

It is now officially a moderate drought here across much of WNY, per the National Climate Prediction Center, due to lack of rainfall over a long stretch, stream flow, vegetation health & soil moisture. You can see the lack of snowfall & rainfall this year has been significant, as we are approaching two & a half inches below average for the year to this point. However, compared to 1977 it was much drier between January 1st & today. Again, though, lack of precipitation is just one of many factors that contribute to a drought.

Thankfully, it appears that we will get some needed showers tonight into Friday, which will help our dry state somewhat anyways. The heaviest rains will likely stay off to the south, but a quarter to three quarters of an inch is better than nothing, right!? We'll take what we can get! Now just don't track to far to the south with this disturbance & surface storm Mother Nature, otherwise we will stay dry.

Either way, the weekend will be mainly dry & very nice Saturday with some sun & highs in the low 80s. On Sunday, it will be warmer & muggier with a few scattered pop up afternoon & evening storms, as readings hit the mid 80s.

Not sure I understand how Scott can say that the drought may not last long when there is barely any rain in the forecast. We are 2-3 inches below normal. The rain tonight will largely miss us to the South.

Well, since we have only had .15 iches of rain so far in July I would bet that Ausgust will be wetter. Also, since this July has been above average in temps I would bet that August may be cooler. What I am saying is that it would not take much to have a wetter and cooler August than July.

News 8 Weather Team, The drought we are currently having has been in the making since this winter's below average snowfall. It takes many months to create a moderate drought, wont it take many "average" monthly rainfalls to end the drought. August is not a good drought ending month, however, it is typicaly one of our driest months. I do understand an above average rainfall for August would slow the drought, but we would need Sept. and Oct. to help out, to actually end this drought. I can see this drought hanging on, and maybe even worsening, until atleast early October. This winter "climatology" worked as the best forecast. Climatology might also work best this summer. Atleast we are getting a nice summer this year. I would take this over a cold rainy summer any day.

I would like to stick my foot in my mouth before the last blog. I never think of August as being our month with our highest average rainfall, does it also have the largest deviation from the arerage, is it a month of extremes. I read my blog it sounded like i was tring to pick a fight. I NOT TRING TO PICK A FIGHT, weather extremes just interest me.

John D.,I just wanted to mention your grammatical error in the latest entry (might lead readers to believe you're dimmer than the average bulb).Never add an "S" to anyway (anywayS). It sounds quite uneducated.Sorry for being so blunt.